Yahoo launches online consumer privacy tool

(AP) -- Yahoo wants its users to know what it knows about them.

The Internet company is rolling out an online tool that allows consumers to see - and edit - the personal profiles that Yahoo has compiled about them based on their Web browsing behavior. Those profiles are used to target Internet advertising.

Yahoo Inc.'s new Ad Interest Manager tool, released in test form on Monday, is part of a broader industry push toward self-regulation amid mounting concerns about online privacy in Washington.

The launch coincided with a Federal Trade Commission conference on Monday about behavioral advertising, a practice used by Internet marketers to track where people go and what they do online and mine that data to serve up targeted ads.

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